The most important job in the world

When you think of all the jobs that you outsource as a busy parent: shining the car, washing the dog, mowing the lawn, cleaning the house and caring for your children, the job that probably pays the least is caring for your most precious possession, your children. Why should you care? After all like me you're trying to make every cent count and childcare costs are a massive part of your family budget if you're returning to work. Well the people who spend the day with your child, who love them and who enjoy their work are having to leave the industry because they can't afford to pay the bills. It's estimated that 15,000 childcare workers in Australia leave the industry every year because they can't manage on the $17-$22 per hour they earn.

There's a television advertisement that pokes gentle fun at how expensive it would be to pay professionals to replace the work done routinely by mothers: teacher, counsellor, chef, chauffeur and nurse. They say it's a job worth a million dollars. I think it's sometimes easy to get our priorities mixed up. Our children are our most precious possessions and yet we hand them over to childcare centres and grumble about the big bill we have to pay for their care.

I know I've had that very experience and it horrifies me to think that most of the women (because let's face it with a few very rare exceptions most childcare workers are women) are paid less to look after children than they would be stacking shelves in a supermarket.

Let's be clear, I'm not in a hurry to pay higher childcare fees but I do want the people who do the work of caring for my child to be paid well enough to want to put their efforts into the childcare industry. It's not fair to use the enthusiasm of people who love children and just burn them out in a career that has no future because quite simply doesn't pay enough money to survive.

Tamika hicks is the owner and manager of Rowville Lakes Early Learning Centre and she is spokesperson for the big steps campaign being run by the United Voice union, which represents workers in the health, childcare, cleaning and miscellaneous workers industries.

I was intrigued that someone who owns a childcare centre would be involved in a campaign to increase childcare workers wages so I had to find out more.